France: 20% of 2016 French Newborns Found to Have a Muslim First Name

Exclusive study : 2016 barometer of muslim first names given to french newborn babies

The INSEE institute (the French national institute for statistical research), just published the official statistics related to the names given to french newborn babies since 1900, like it does every year.

A quick analysis made by the French website, Fdesouche, revealed the major trends about newborn Muslim babies in France:

More than 20% of newborn babies were found to have a muslim name, or 1/5.

The rate for Muslim names was 6.54% 20 years ago, back in 1997.

In the Paris region, Muslim names represented 32% of names attributed to newborns (almost one baby out of 3).

Only 10 départements out of 101 (administrative division, French equivalent of English or American counties) are above the national average of 20%, but they are also extremely fertile ones, concentrating more than 26% of the national births. Among these 10 départements, 6 are located in the Ile-de-France region (20% of the French population).

28 out of 101 départements are below 5%, but they also have a reduced fertility, with only 8% of the national births in these areas, and declining.

In terms of trends, the attribution rate of Muslim names increased by 0.6 points compared to 2015. A closer look at the local level reveals other particular trends:

The attribution rate is growing particularly:

In the Paris suburbs

In the départements located outside of Europe (mostly small islands in the Caribbean sea and French Guiana)

In some former working-class départements.

The attribution rate is decreasing :

In downtown Paris, probably caused by the ever increasing costs of living.

In many rural départements.

In Corsica.

These frightening results seem to match the latest Pewresearch Center forecasts for the Muslim populations in European countries. With the medium migration scenario, the French Muslim population would indeed be expected to weigh as much as 17.4% of the total French population by 2050. Also according to the Pewresearch Center, Muslims in France would have an average of 2.8 children while native French women would only have 1.9, and decreasing. This perceptible difference in fertility rates, combined with a net annual migration of more than a hundred thousands Muslims, is the biggest contributor to The Great Replacement of the native French people, that we can witness in the present study despite the ban on the collection of ethnic data.

In order to properly lead this study, it was necessary to create a referential of Muslim names, which of course wasn’t done by the INSEE institute.

Even if the Quran states that a Muslim name is a necessary distinctive mark aiming to facilitate communication between its bearer and other people, it is not that easy to identify them among the 33,500 total names in the INSEE database.

Many listings available on communautarian websites have been analysed, such as: www.halalbook.fr, www.prenommusulmanrare.com, www.pageshallal.com, www.katibin.fr, and more.

A referential of students by country of origin was also used :www.studentsoftheworld.info

Many official registers from different French towns were examined in order to validate the association of the name to particular patronymics.

Some names are systematically attributed to children in Muslim families, and were classified as «certain Muslim names».

Others, which are attributed in majority to children of Muslim families, can sometimes be attributed to other children as well, and were counted as «mixed names».

In order to have undisputable statistics, only half of «mixed names» were counted as Muslims.

A bias also tends to minimise the number of Muslim names in the INSEE database, since many «rare» Muslim names are not published.

French article available at http://www.fdesouche.com/955217-barometre-2016-de-loctroi-de-prenoms-musulmans-france

Writer at Defend Europa. Postgraduate in management, lover of baroque music, European medieval history and Alpine landscapes.